Jesus Seminar to mark 25 years of questions

Published 5:30 am, Thursday, September 9, 2010

Since 1985, scholars affiliated with the Jesus Seminar have been casting doubt on the authenticity of sayings attributed to Jesus and questioning whether he saw himself as an end-times prophet.

As the seminar marks its 25th anniversary Oct. 13-16 in Santa Rosa, Calif., it's generating far less attention and controversy than in years past, when the media spotlight gave members a platform to reach millions.

Now observers are debating a new question: What difference has the Jesus Seminar made? Once again, the jury is divided.

Among the seminar's 100 fellows is a strong sense that the group has effectively made the general public more aware of questions surrounding the so-called "historical Jesus."

For example: By using color-coded beads to vote on whether Jesus likely said this or that, the group captured widespread attention, said John Dominic Crossan, chair of the 25th anniversary event.

"When some of our critics said, 'These guys are seeking publicity,' we said 'Duh! That's the whole purpose!' " Crossan said. "We wanted people to know what we were doing. That was the whole purpose of the voting with colored beads and all the rest of that paraphernalia."

Critics of the Jesus Seminar concede that the group deftly drew the spotlight and got a cross-section of people talking about Jesus. But they also fault the scholars for allegedly misrepresenting their views as mainstream and for shaking the faith of Christian communities.

"They created this impression that they were representing a genuine consensus of opinion that Jesus only said 18 percent of what's attributed to him in the Gospels and so on," Duke Divinity School Dean Richard Hays said. "In point of fact, that was never so. They didn't represent the sort of consensus that they claimed to represent."

The Jesus Seminar held its first meeting in Berkeley, Calif., as 35 individuals, mostly scholars, responded to an invitation from the late Robert Funk, who died in 2005.

Having rejected the fundamentalism of his youth, Funk was eager to assemble scholars to dispel what he considered to be mistaken church teachings about Jesus, according to Lane McGaughy, a member of the seminar since its beginning.

What emerged from the group's semiannual meetings was a sense of Jesus as human, not divine, rising to prominence because of his social justice teachings, not because of his messianic status.

Critics say the Jesus Seminar has long been an agenda-driven project marked by flawed methodology.

Fellows of the seminar defend its methods and its impact.

Crossan says that through the seminar, scholars fulfilled a moral duty to make their insights accessible to rank-and-file Christians and other curious people, not just academic journals.

McGaughy goes even further, saying the seminar, in presenting a historical and human Jesus, helped make Christianity meaningful for people who stopped believing doctrine and left the church.

After more than two decades of examining the Gospels, the Jesus Seminar is moving on. Fellows continue to meet, but they now focus on the biblical book of Acts and the letters of Paul. One umbrella group will in October publish The Authentic Letters of Paul.

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As the seminar moves beyond Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, critics say the initiative has ceased to compel public interest. Ben Witherington, professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary, sees the lack of public attention as a sign that the seminar is now largely irrelevant to public conversation about religion and culture.

"There is in a way less criticism of the Jesus Seminar now and less publicity in fact because our work has been accepted. It's no longer regarded as on the fringes," McGaughy said.